GAY PLUMES AND DULL 



fish the males put on brighter colors in the spring, 

 and surely this cannot be to win the females, as 

 there is no proper mating among them. 



The odd forms and bizarre colors, that so often 

 prevail among birds, more especially tropical and 

 semi-tropical birds, and among insects, suggest 

 fashions among men, capricious, fantastic, gaudy, 

 often grotesque, and having no direct reference to 

 the needs of the creatures possessing them. They 

 are clearly the riot and overflow of the male sexual 

 principle — the carnival of the nuptial and breed- 

 ing impulse. The cock or sham nests of the male 

 wrens seem to be the result of the excess and over- 

 flow of the same principle. 



It is not, therefore, in my view of the case, female 

 selection that gives the males their bright plumage, 

 but the inborn tendency of the masculine principle 

 to riot and overplus. There is, strictly speaking, no 

 wooing, no courtship, among the four-footed beasts, 

 and yet the badges of masculinity, manes, horns, 

 tusks, pride, pugnacity, are as pronounced here as 

 are the male adornments among the fowls of the air. 



Why, among the polygamous species of birds, are 

 the males so much more strongly marked than 

 among the monogamous ? Why, but as a result of 

 the superabundance and riot of the male sexual 

 principle? In some cases among the quadrupeds 

 it even greatly increases the size of the males over 

 the females, as among the polygamous fur seals. 

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